About Us

Search This Site:

Lucky

Thursday, January 24, 2013

In the summer of 2010, Last Stop Horse Rescue in Prentiss, Maine, rescued Lucky, a 12-year-old mare who had a body condition score of zero when she arrived at the rescue. Lucky's owners put her on a treatment program for gaining weight by preparing a soft food diet and had a veterinarian float her teeth. Lucky improved somewhat, but still was not thriving. Eventually, her owners discovered she was severely underweight because she not able to properly eat hay or grass.

After searching online for a veterinarian to evaluate Lucky, her owners emailed Dr. Jennifer Rawlinson. She referred Lucky to Dr. Bob Baratt, a veterinary dentist working in Connecticut who completed his residency at Cornell. Lucky's owners brought her to Dr. Baratt's clinic, where he diagnosed her with a rare large bone cyst in her left jaw that would continue to take over her entire jaw unless she had surgery. He explained this type of complex surgery required a team of doctors working at a major animal hospital, and referred Lucky back to Dr. Rawlinson at Cornell.

Lucky arrived at the Cornell University Hospital for Animals in August 2012 for surgery to remove her bone cyst. A team of ten veterinarians collaborated on the case, including specialists from dentistry anesthesiology, soft tissue, and orthopedic surgery. Lucky was put under general anesthesia and the surgery team, lead by Jennifer Rawlinson, worked for five hours to remove the cyst in her jaw.

The team was able to fully remove the cyst. They carefully monitored Lucky for the next two days to ensure fluid drainage from the surgery site and monitored for infection making sure that Lucky was able to eat. Two days after the surgery, Lucky was able to travel back to her home in Maine with her owners.

Today, Lucky able to eat grass and hay, and has returned to a normal body weight. She is happy and thriving at Last Stop Horse Rescue.